After a month spent exploring the Yama Cinematic Universe, I am impressed with just how versatile a character Yama is; he can fit easily into a political sketch comedy, or a sincere exploration of the fragility of family ties, or, as in Yamadonga (2007), a bombastic romantic action-comedy.
Raja (Jr NTR) and Mahi (Priyamani) met briefly as children, and while she was impressed enough to give him Chekhov's Locket, their lives developed in very different directions. Mahi grew up to live the life of a fairy tale princess - specifically Cinderella. While she is the heir to the family fortune, her greedy relatives force her to toil as a household servant. Worse, they are planning to marry her off to her loathsome cousin so that they can seize control of the family fortune. Mahi suffers in silence, dreaming of the day when her handsome prince will carry her away on a winged horse.
Raja, however, is no prince. He's a thief and a conman and (because this is a South Indian Mass movie) fantastically skilled at beating people up. While Raja and his partner Sathi (Ali) are very good at taking other people's money, their fence, the lovely Dhanalakshmi (Mamta Mohandas) is even better at taking theirs, so the pair are hoping for one big score.
They get their chance when Raja is hired to recover a lost dress (it's complicated.) Naturally, Raja succeeds, inadvertently rescuing Mahi from a gang of kidnappers in a spectacular action sequence involving a giant hamster ball. Unfortunately, the happy client drops dead just before he can sign the check, leaving Raja even deeper in debt. An angry and drunk Raja curses Yama, swearing vengeance for the poorly timed grim reaping.
Unfortunately, at that very moment, Yama (Mohan Babu) is showing the other gods just how much the people on Earth fear and respect him. (The trickster sage Narada (Naresh) suggested the celestial show and tell, meaning once again everything is Narada's fault.) Yama is so angry and humiliated that he orders Chitragupta (Brahmanandam) to alter Raja's entry in the Bhavishyavaani, changing his date of death from "in seventy five years" to "in ten days."
Back on Earth, angry drunk Raja throws Mahi out of the house. In the morning, though, he watches the news and discovers that she is a missing heiress, so he finds her (not hard since she's right outside the front door), charms her, and makes arrangements to ransom her back to her family. However, Raja is betrayed and murdered before he can collect the ransom, meaning he's sent straight to Yamalok. And then things get complicated.
After finding out where he is, Raja gets to work. He tricks Chitragupota into handing over Yama's magic noose, his "Life Extractor" as the subtitles call it, and because there's no pesky "if he be worthy" clause, he is granted the power of Yama. Original Yama also has the powers of Yama, of course, so there is a problem. Narada pops up long enough to suggest settling the dispute with an election, and the two Yamas agree. Classic Yama has experience and a loyal populace on his side, but New Yama grew up on Earth, so he is armed with the power of dirty politics and a lot of empty promises.
Yamadonga is about three hours long, which means that I have only scratched the surface of the plot, and it jumps genres more than once. Whenever the complicated plot starts to drag, though, the movie gives you a big elaborate action scene or an even bigger dance number. And because the movie is so long it can act as a sort of "Yama's Greatest Hits" compilation, prominently featuring the book of destiny, gods descending to Earth, a mortal causing trouble in Yamalok, an election in the afterlife, a mortal soul on parole, and a scheme lifted directly from Bugs Bunny. The only thing that's missing is ice cream. Maybe in the sequel.
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